Meet The Mother Of Thanksgiving

Rich Lowry at the New York Post offers a column on the beginnings of the Thanksgiving holiday.

It was 150 years ago that Sarah Josepha Hale gave us Thanksgiving as we know it.

The influential editor was the best friend Thanksgiving ever had.

We’re accustomed, in a more jaded and secular age, to wars on various holidays; Hale waged a war for Thanksgiving. For years, she evangelized for nationalizing the holiday by designating the last Thursday of November for it to be celebrated annually across the country.

Besides plugging for Thanksgiving in her publication, Godey’s Lady’s Book, she wrote Presidents Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan about it before hitting pay dirt with Abraham Lincoln.

On Oct. 3, 1863, Lincoln urged his fellow citizens to observe the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2013/11/25/meet-the-mother-of-thanksgiving/

Note: The above DoD photo shows U.S. sailors aboard ship lining up for Thanksgiving "Chow."